Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/295

ANIMAL MAGNETISM.] MAGNETISM 277 MAGNETISM, ANIMAL. The terms animal magnetism, electro-biology, mesmerism, clairvoyance, odylic or odic force, and hypnotism have been used to designate peculiar nervous conditions in which the body and mind of an individual were supposed to be influenced by a mysterious force emanating from another person. With the exception of mesmerism, a name given to the phenomena in honour of one of their earliest investigators, F. A. Mesmer, each of these terms implies a theory. Thus the phenomena of animal magnetism were supposed to be due to some kind of magnetic force or influence peculiar to living beings and analogous to the action of a magnet upon steel or certain metals ; electro-biology, a more modern term, introduced iu 1850 by two American lecturers, referred the phenomena to the action of electrical currents generated in the living body, and capable of influencing electrically the bodies of others ; clairvoyance implied a power of mental vision or of mental hearing, or of a mental production of other sensations, by which the individual became aware of events happening in another part of the world from where he was, or could tell of the existence of objects which could not affect at the time any of his bodily senses ; odylic force was a term given to a force of a mysterious character by which all the phenomena of animal magnetism might be accounted for ; and hypnotism, from VTTVOS, sleep, was a name applied to a condition artificially produced in which the person was apparently asleep and yet acted in obedience to the will of the operator as regards both motion and sensation. History. It was natural that the apparent power of influencing the bodies and minds of others should attract much attention and be eagerly sought after for purposes of gain, or from a love of the marvellous, or for the cure of diseases. Hence we find that, whilst not a few have investigated these phenomena in a scientific spirit, more have done so as quacks and charlatans who have thrown discredit on a department of the physiology of man of the -deepest interest. Recently, however, as will be shown in this article, physiologists and physicians have set about investigating the subject in such a manner as to bring it into the domain of exact science, and to dispel the idea that the phenomena are due either to any occult force or to super natural agency. It would appear that in all ages diseases were alleged to be affected by the touch of the hand of certain persons, who were supposed to communicate a healing virtue to the sufferer. It is also known that among the Chaldaeans, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans many of the priests effected cures, or threw people into deep sleeps in the shades of the temples, during which the sleeper sometimes had prophetic dreams, and that they otherwise produced effects like those now referred to animal magnetism. Such influences were held to be supernatural, and no doubt they gave power to the priest hood. In the middle of the 17th century there appeared in England several persons who said they had the power of curing diseases by stroking with the hand. Notable amongst these was Valentine Greatrakes, of Affane, in the county of Waterford, Ireland, who was born in February 1628, and who attracted great attention in England by his supposed power of curing the king s evil, or scrofula. Many of the most distinguished scientific and theological men of the day, such as Robert Boyle and R. Cud worth, witnessed and attested the cures supposed to be effected by Greatrakes, and thousands of sufferers crowded to him from all parts of the kingdom (see Colquhoun s History of Magic, &c., voL ii. p. 146). Phenomena of a marvellous kind, more especially such as imply a mysterious or supernatural power exercised by one person over another, not only attract attention, but take so firm a hold on the imagination that belief in them breaks out now and again with all the intensity of an epidemic. Thus since the time of Greatrakes, at short intervals, men have arisen who have led the public captive at their will. About the middle of the 18th century John Joseph Gassner, a Roman Catholic priest in Swabia, took up the notion that the majority of diseases arose from demoniacal possession, and could only be cured by exorcism. His method was undoubtedly similar to that followed by Mesmer and others, and he had an extraordinary influence over the nervous systems of his patients. Gassner, how ever, believed his power to be altogether supernatural and connected with religion. Friedrich (or Franz) Anton Mesmer was born at Weil, near the point at which the Rhine leaves the Lake of Con stance, on May 23, 1733. He studied medicine at Vienna under the eminent masters of that day, Van Swieten and De Haen, took a degree, and commenced practice. Interested in astrology, he imagined that the stars exerted an influ ence on beings living on the earth. He identified the sup posed force first with electricity, and then with magnetism ; and it was but a short step to suppose that stroking diseased bodies with magnets might effect a cure. He published his first work (De Planetarum Influxu] in 1766. Ten years later, on meeting with Gassner in Switzerland, he observed that the priest effected cures without the use of magnets, by manipulation alone. This led Mesmer to discard the magnets, and to suppose that some kind of occult force resided in himself by which he could influence others. He held that this force permeated the universe, and more especially affected the nervous systems of men. He removed to Paris in 1778, and in a short time the French capital was thrown into a state of great excitement by the marvellous effects of mesmerism. Mesmer soon made many converts ; controversies arose ; he excited the indignation of the medical faculty of Paris, who stigmatized him as a charlatan ; still the people crowded to him. He refused an offer of 20,000 francs from the Government for the disclosure of his secret, but it is asserted that he really told all he knew privately to any one for 100 louis. He received private rewards of large sums of money. Appreciat ing the effect of mysterious surroundings on the imagina tions of his patients, he had his consulting apartments dimly lighted and hung with mirrors ; strains of soft music occasionally broke the profound silence ; odours were wafted through the room ; and the patients sat round a kind of vat in which various chemical ingredients were concocted or simmered over a fire. Holding each others hands, or joined by cords, the patients sat in expectancy, and then Mesmer, clothed in the dress of a magician, glided amongst them, affecting this one by a touch, another by a look, and making "passes" with his hand towards a third. The effects were various, but all were held to be salutary. Nervous ladies became hysterical or fainted ; some men became convulsed, or were seized with palpitations of the heart or other bodily disturbances. The Government appointed a commission of physicians and members of the Academy of Sciences to investigate these phenomena; Franklin and Baillie were members of this commission, and drew up an elaborate report admitting many of the facts, but contesting Mesmer s theory that there was an agent called animal magnetism, and attributing the effects to physiological causes. Mesmer himself was undoubtedly a mystic; and, although the excitement of the time led him to indulge in mummery and sensational effects, he was honest in the belief that the phenomena produced were real, and called for further investigation. For a time, however, animal magnetism fell into disrepute ; it became a system of downright jugglery, and Mesmer himself was denounced as a shallow empiric and impostor. He with

drew from Paris, and died at Meersburg in Switzerland